Positive Peace in Schools - Chapter One

An excerpt from chapter one of the book, where we start to explore and challenge the question of violence in schools...

"The idea that out-of-control youth need to be educated by trained soldiers is misinformed, and further promotes the militarisation of schooling. It is as if teachers who have lost authority need to borrow the authority of the soldier in order to be able to control unruly teenagers. Little thought is given to the transferability (or desirability) of the authority of the armed forces in civilian settings...Despite the undisputed need for structure, routine and safety in schools, it is nevertheless the case that the process of gaining an education does not automatically require authoritarian discipline, or fear. Schools that are overly militarised rely on extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, motivation. As we will show later in the book, this impedes self-discipline - the putative goal of any education system. For now, it is sufficient to ask whether this is really how education in the twenty-first century should be conducted. And, if so, whose interests are served by the discourse of out-of-control youngsters whose regular acts of violence in schools need to be curtailed by trained soldiers?"